By the time Lin Xiao hurried back to Poplar Village, it was already past midnight.
There was not a soul in Poplar Village, but a faint glow of fire could be seen in the wilderness outside.
Within the area where Lin Xiao had previously set up a formation, the villagers were all sleeping soundly, huddled together inside the makeshift thatched shelters they had built.
Two small fires burned in front of the shelters. A young, strong villager sat before one of them, nodding off.
Two small medicine stoves stood nearby as well, though no medicine was being boiled in them at the moment.
Fang Tuantuan had to patrol the area and keep an eye on the patients’ conditions, while also glancing over at the villager dozing beside the fire from time to time. That way, if he accidentally plunged headfirst into the flames, it could rush over and drag him away in time.
This was the scene Lin Xiao saw when he returned.
The Allied Army had said they would send people over, but anyone could tell that an organization made up of multiple factions would never be particularly efficient.
The fact that they had managed to join forces and successfully overthrow the former imperial family of the Huanyou Kingdom in such a short time was already completely unexpected.
As a result, the villagers of Poplar Village still had no one to take over their care for the time being.
Lin Xiao had no intention of disturbing the villagers’ sleep. Rather than walk over, he released his aura once he had drawn close enough.
Fang Tuantuan had just finished making a round of its patrol and was about to drag away the villager sitting beside the fire, whose hair was almost being licked by the flames, when it suddenly sensed something. It hurriedly raised its head and looked in a certain direction.
A familiar figure stood quietly in the open wilderness.
Seeing that it was indeed Lin Xiao, Fang Tuantuan leaped toward him.
An insulating barrier had already been set up around the area.
Over the past year or so, with the entire Lingxian Sect constantly feeding it, Fang Tuantuan had successfully gone from having a slender figure to becoming more than half a ball. Its cheeks had filled out as well, making its head and body blend seamlessly together without even a neck remaining.
Lin Xiao squatted down and stroked the top of its head, then scratched beneath its chin with his index finger. Fang Tuantuan narrowed its eyes in comfort and began to purr.
Then he asked softly, “Tuantuan, how have things been on your end these past two days?”
“Meow~” No problem at all!
Lin Xiao swept his divine sense over the villagers and found that their condition had improved considerably compared to before.
Their complexions had recovered, their breathing was steady, and even the eyeballs that had nearly bulged out of their sockets had retreated somewhat…
In short, they were all steadily recovering.
Fang Tuantuan then meowed repeatedly as it reported the villagers’ specific conditions over the past two days.
“You’ve worked hard.” Lin Xiao stroked the cat with one hand while taking out a bag of dried fish and opening it in front of Tuantuan.
“Meow!”
Fang Tuantuan happily gobbled them down.
Meanwhile, Lin Xiao approached Poplar Village. He walked around its outskirts, surveying the area as he pondered.
Although the villagers had temporarily left the village because of their illness, this was not a long-term solution.
Not to mention their attachment to the place where they had been born and raised, the stark reality that every household in Poplar Village was desperately poor meant they simply could not afford to move elsewhere and settle down again.
Therefore, if possible, Lin Xiao still wanted to help them resolve the problems plaguing this place.
Although the matter had already been handed over to the Allied Army, judging by the attitudes of the two Allied Army leaders he had encountered before—Venerable Zhiyu and Venerable Xunfang—he did not hold out much hope for how seriously the Allied Army would take the matter.
If only there were some way to seal this aura that endangered mortals…
He opened his private inventory and rummaged through it, hoping to find something that might be useful.
He found nothing of value, but his gaze suddenly came to rest on a formation stone he had previously obtained from Wei Hai.
If he remembered correctly, the system had said that this was the formation stone of a Great Yin Sealing Formation.
He simply had no idea what kind of sealing formation this so-called Great Yin Sealing Formation was…
As he thought about it, he took out the formation stone and examined it in his hand.
Unexpectedly, the moment Lin Xiao raised the formation stone before his eyes, it began to hum. The stone’s body started vibrating at an extremely high frequency, making his fingers tingle.
The humming vibration traveled from the outside inward and brushed against the surface of his divine sense. Suddenly, an extremely faint sensation rose within his heart.
Lin Xiao was greatly surprised and immediately tried to investigate what the sensation was.
However, the feeling was so faint that the moment he moved, it vanished.
He had no choice but to close his eyes and calm his mind, carefully sensing it.
Before long, that extremely faint sensation appeared in his heart once more.
With his eyes closed, he carefully distinguished and experienced it for quite some time before finally determining that the sensation was coming from the due south within the village!
Lin Xiao immediately opened his eyes, gripped the formation stone, and dashed into Poplar Village.
The farther in he went, the stronger the faint sensation became. Although it remained incredibly weak overall, at least it no longer disappeared so easily.
Following its direction, he went straight into the depths of the village, all the way to an old well.
The well appeared to have existed for many years.
The stone slabs surrounding it had been worn smooth and lustrous, like black jade.
The rim of the well bore traces of countless repairs, old marks layered over newer ones.
The water level inside was not particularly high, but the well water looked exceptionally clear. Even Lin Xiao, who had access to spring water nourished by a spirit vein at home, could not help wanting to scoop up a handful and taste it.
However, before he could act on the impulse, the formation stone in his hand suddenly began humming violently, producing a sharp, piercing sound.
The space around him twisted.
Then Lin Xiao suddenly felt an enormous suction force dragging him downward.
When he came back to his senses, he found himself in a completely enclosed space measuring less than ten square meters.
The place was dim. A faintly glowing orb of light at the very center was the only source of illumination.
Lin Xiao looked around, only to discover that the orb was not merely the sole source of light in this space—it was also the only object within it.
That was not entirely accurate.
Apart from the orb, there was also a stream of water flowing down one wall.
He could not tell where it was going, nor could he see its source.
But those details seemed secondary. What truly aroused his curiosity was the faint light at the center.
He instinctively swept it with his divine sense, only to discover that, just like the imperial seal he had found before, the orb completely resisted his divine sense. He could not penetrate it or inspect what lay within.
The only difference was that this orb was not as bright as the imperial seal had been before being activated by the former emperor.
Lin Xiao stepped forward and discovered that he could actually see inside the orb with his naked eyes.
However, the layer of light on the outside made the contents difficult to see clearly.
After observing it carefully for a while, he raised the formation stone in his hand and held it beside the orb for comparison.
It looked rather similar…
Combining that with the circumstances under which he had found the ancient well and been drawn inside, he could reasonably conclude that the object within this orb was very likely something of the same nature as the formation stone in his hand.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
